Swimming pools are in widespread use throughout the world for recreational use. In many parts of the world, including the southern United States, many homeowners have private swimming pools located in their backyards. In addition, parks, recreational facilities, country clubs and the like also frequently have relatively large public swimming pools.
In most cases, swimming pools, whether small or large, are designed with a shallow end connected by means of a sloping transition to a deep end of the pool. The deep end typically is designed to be between eight and ten feet deep; so that persons may dive into that end of the pool. Diving boards are often located at the deep end of such swimming pools. For smaller pools, the deep portion does not extend a great distance before it transitions upwardly into the shallow portion of the pool. Even for larger pools, divers cannot easily distinguish, from the diving board, the transition from the deepest water to the shallowest water with any great amount of accuracy. As a consequence, persons diving into the pool, either off a diving board or from the sides of the pool, risk colliding with the bottom of the pool if the dive is targeted toward the shallow end of the pool, or toward the transition portion of the pool. This is especially a problem with swimmers using a pool at night.
For many years, swimming pools have included an underwater light located on the vertical wall of the pool, at the deep end, for illuminating the pool. In most pools, this light source is an electric light source connected by means of wires to a source of power. A lens is provided in the wall of the pool between the light bulb and the water on the opposite side of the lens, with appropriate gaskets and seals to prevent water from leaking into the box or housing in which the light bulb is located. In time, however, the gaskets or seals around the lens often deteriorate, allowing water to leak into the lamp housing. This presents a serious potential electrical shock hazard for persons using pools with such lighting systems.
In order to avoid the dangers of a possible electrical hazard from an underwater light source in a pool, systems have been designed to deliver light to a single outlet in a pool from a remotely located light source. Two United States patents showing such systems are Friedman U.S. Pat. No. 3,441,947 and Robbins U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,430. The systems of both of these patents employ the use of a rather large light conduit in the form of a fiber optic cable to deliver light to a single outlet in the pool, from a single remotely located electrical light source. Since the fiber optic cable is used to deliver the actual light to the pool, the possibility of an electrical hazard in the pool is eliminated.
The United States patent to Dunn No. 5,980,076 discloses the light input end of a system for delivering light to a bundle of fiber optic cables (three of which are shown) to termination points in spas or pools. The actual termination points are not shown in this patent; but fiber optic cables are used to deliver light from a remote source to terminating ends of the cables located in a pool or spa.
None of the foregoing patents, however, suggest in any way a warning system for warning divers about to use the pool of the relative depths of the water in the pool. It is desirable to provide a lighting system for a swimming pool which utilizes lights of different colors in the bottom of the pool to warn divers of the different relative depths of the water in the pool.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved pool lighting system.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved swimming pool safety lighting system.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an improved swimming pool safety lighting system using lights of different colors indicative of different depths of water in the pool.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a swimming pool safety light system utilizing fiber optic cables to deliver light from a remote light source to termination points in the bottom of the pool, with the termination points delivering light of different colors indicative of the relative depth of water in the pool.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention, a pool safety lighting system for use in a swimming pool having at least a shallow portion and a deep portion utilizes at least first and second lights. The first and second lights are located in the bottom of the swimming pool, and they may be of different colors to advise divers of the relative safety of diving into the pool in the vicinity of the lights. In a more specific embodiment of the invention, the actual light is delivered from a remote light source by way of fiber optic cables to the locations in the bottom of the pool.